A THING IMPOSSIBLE IN GASLIGHT.
At this moment a hollow, cadenced sound began to grow audible a short distance off, and Jean Valjean ventured to take a peep round the corner of the street. Seven or eight soldiers were entering the street. He could see their bayonets gleaming, and they were coming toward him. These soldiers, at the head of whom he distinguished Javert's tall form, advanced slowly and cautiously, and frequently halted; it was plain that they were exploring all the corners and all the doors and lanes. It was—and here conjecture could not be wrong—some patrol which Javert had met and requested to assist him. Judging from the pace at which they marched, and the halts they made, they would require about a quarter of an hour to reach the spot where Jean Valjean was. It was a frightful thought; a few moments separated Jean Valjean from the awful precipice which yawned before him for the third time. And the galleys were now not merely the galleys, but Cosette lost forever; that is to say, a life resembling the interior of a tomb.
There was only one thing possible. Jean Valjean had one peculiarity, that he might be said to carry two wallets; in one he had the thoughts of a saint, in the other the formidable talents of a convict, and he felt in one or the other as opportunity offered. Among other resources, owing to his numerous escapes from the Toulon galleys, he had become a perfect master in the incredible art of raising himself without ladder or cramping irons, and by his mere muscular strength, and holding on by his shoulders and knees, in the right angle of a wall, to the sixth floor if necessary,—an art which rendered so terrible and so celebrated that corner of the yard in the Paris Conciergerie by which the condemned convict Battemolle escaped twenty years ago. Jean Valjean measured the height of the wall above which he saw the linden-tree, and found that it was about eighteen feet. The lower part of the angle which it made with the gable end of the large building was filled up with a triangular mass of masonry, very common in Parisian corners. This mass was about five feet high, and the space to be cleared from the top of it was not more than fourteen; but the difficulty was Cosette, for she could not climb a wall. Abandon her? Jean Valjean did not think of it, but carrying her was impossible; a man requires his whole strength to carry out such an ascent, and the slightest burden would displace his centre of gravity and hurl him down. He required a rope, but he had none. Where was he to find a rope at midnight in the Rue Polonceau? Assuredly at this moment if Jean Valjean had possessed a kingdom he would have given it for a rope. All extreme situations have their flashes, which at one moment blind, at another illumine us. Jean Valjean's desperate glance fell on the lamp-post in the blind alley. In those days there were no gaslights in the streets of Paris; at nightfall lamps were lit at regular distances, which were pulled up and down by a rope that crossed the street and fitted into a groove in a post. The end of the rope was kept in an iron box under the lantern, of which the lamp-lighter had the key, and the rope itself was protected by a metal case. Jean Valjean leaped across the street, burnt the lock of the box with the point of his knife, and a moment later was again by Cosette's side holding a rope. Such gloomy finders of expedients when struggling with fatality set rapidly to work. We have mentioned that the lamps were not lit on this night; the one in the blind alley therefore was naturally extinguished, and any one might have passed close without noticing that it was no longer in its place.
The hour, the place, the darkness, Jean Valjean's preoccupation, his singular gestures, his coming and going, were all beginning to alarm Cosette. Any other child would have begun crying kindly long before; but she confined herself to pulling the skirt of his coat. The noise of the approaching patrol constantly became more distinct.
"Father," she whispered, "I am frightened; who is coming?"
"Silence," the unhappy man replied; "it is Madame Thénardier."
The child trembled, and he added,—
"Do not say a word, but leave me to act: if you cry out or sob she will catch you and take you back again."
Then, without hurry, but without doing anything twice over, with a firm and sharp precision, which was the more remarkable at such a moment, when the patrol and Javert might be instantly expected, he undid his cravat, fastened it under Cosette's armpits, while careful not to hurt her, fastened the rope to the cravat, took the other end in his teeth, took off his shoes and stockings, which he threw over the wall, and began raising himself in the corner of the wall with as much certainty as if he had cramping irons under his heels and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed ere he was astride the coping. Cosette looked at him in stupor, without saying a word; for Jean Valjean's mention of the landlady's name had frozen her. All at once she heard Jean Valjean say to her in a very low voice,—
"Lean against the wall."
She obeyed.
"You must not say a word, or feel frightened," he continued.
And she felt herself lifted from the ground, but before she had time to look round she found herself on the top of the wall. Jean Valjean placed her on his back, took her two little hands in his left hand, and crawled along the wall till he reached the cant. As he had suspected, there was a building here, whose roof began at the top of the bastard gate and descended in a gentle slope nearly to the ground, grazing the linden-tree. This was a fortunate circumstance, for the wall was much higher on this side than on that of the street, and Jean Valjean could scarce see the ground, so far was it beneath him. He had just reached the sloping roof, and had not yet loosed his hold of the coping, when a violent uproar announced the arrival of the patrol, and he heard Javert's thundering voice,—
"Search the blind alley; all the streets are guarded, and I will wager that he is in it."
The soldiers rushed forward into the alley Genrot. Jean Valjean slipped down the roof, still supporting Cosette, reached the linden-tree, and leaped on the ground. Either through terror or courage the child had not said a word; her hands were only slightly grazed.